CSO gives Ohlsson room in Ravinia opener

Classical review

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra came off rather like an absentee host at its own party on Monday when the CSO launched its 74th annual residency at the Ravinia Festival.

Relegating the orchestra to second-banana status made for a rather modest opener for what looks to be a mostly conventional orchestral summer at our Highland Park pleasure dome. I hope the number of empty seats in the pavilion — despite cool, inviting temperatures — was not an omen.

Most of the attention thus fell on the guest of honor, pianist Garrick Ohlsson, wrapping up his Ravinia contribution to the Chopin bicentennial with a program consisting of two solo pieces along with the two Chopin piano concertos. Two other solo pieces were dropped without explanation, perhaps so as not to push the concert into overtime.

A giant of a man, Ohlsson is one of the most formidable Chopin pianists. He and the composer's music have been linked in the public's mind since he won the international Chopin Competition in Warsaw 40 years ago. What's more, he has recorded the complete Chopin piano works for the Arabesque label, a series that has been re-released on Hyperion. And there was much to admire in his firm, cultivated treatment of the four Chopin pieces on Monday's program.

Once the CSO retreated to the wings following the national anthem, Ohlsson came out to deliver a rather messy reading of the Fantasy in F minor that served as a warm-up for his much more assured account of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor. The now-customary cameras were there to transmit telling close-ups of the pianist and orchestra via large screens at the sides of the pavilion, their fluid movements mirroring Ohlsson's own.

His modernity of outlook told in the sharply etched clarity and clean contours he brought to both the Second concerto as well as its E minor companion, No. 1, along with his lack of sentimentality in the reverie-like Larghettos that form the expressive soul of both works.

Throughout these performances Ohlsson used his technical brilliance to illuminate the music rather than himself; strength and elegance coexisted happily. His supple phrasing, the springiness he brought to the mazurka and krakowiak dance rhythms, and the delicacy with which his right hand spun flights of fancy over a prominent bass line were constants.

So was the hearty presence music director James Conlon gave the orchestra, here a full-fledged musical partner rather than a puppy scampering subserviently behind the soloist, as is often the case at Chopin concerts.

Too bad about the disastrous horn solo in the opening movement of the E minor Concerto. Too bad, too, that the pavilion acoustics, while they projected the piano sound clearly enough, did no favors to the muted colors of Chopin's orchestration.

The most successful of Ohlsson's solo pieces was the Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor, in which the swashbuckling and lyrical elements were sensitively integrated.

This is the week for Chopin concertos at Chicago's two major classical festivals. Krzysztof Jablonski will perform the E minor concerto with conductor Krzysztof Urbanski and the Grant Park Orchestra as part of an all-Polish program at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park.